[Excerpted] There is no official price tag for the effort to upgrade and maintain the
5,113 warheads in the inventory, to replace old delivery systems and to
renovate the aging facilities where nuclear work is performed. A study this
summer by the nonpartisan Stimson Center, a Washington think tank, estimated
costs would be at least $352 billion over the coming decade to operate and
modernize the current arsenal. Others say the figure could be far higher,
particularly if the work is delayed even longer.

At
the heart of the overhaul are the weapons themselves. Renovating nuclear bombs
and missiles to keep them safe and ready for use will cost tens of billions of
dollars. Upgrading just one of the seven types of weapons in the stockpile, the
B61 bomb, is likely to cost $10 billion over five years, according to the
Pentagon. The next two types of bombs in line for modification are estimated to
cost a total of at least $5 billion ...

Finally, there are the buildings and laboratories where the refurbishment of
weapons and development of new technologies take place. Modernizing those
facilities is expected to cost at least $88 billion over 10 years,
according to the NNSA, which is part of the Department of Energy...

Some 640 people are designing the new uranium processing plant at Y-12. It
will use 10 experimental technologies still being invented. There will be
elaborate air filtration systems, duplicative electrical and fire control
systems, redundant security barriers, earthquake-proof concrete floors and
impenetrable vaults — all required to maintain and work with highly radioactive
material...

Majia here: The nuclear arms race persists.

The concept of mutually assured destruction has insanity at its heart.

There is no need to "modernize" nuclear weapons when we have quite enough of them to destroy all life on the planet many times over....When I read this article I really think there is simply no hope for humanity....

2 comments:

Don't be lulled to sleep; the world situation is practically in a crisis state. It's not the orchestrated distractions, such as the island row between Japan and China, no, it's the US trying to use its military power to control the world without much economic or other backing. The US should subtract all the financial crap and scams and schemes from its GDP rather than adding them - then you would see who is doing well. Smashing everything in Africa and the Near East and creating micro-states that the US can control is part of this. Another part is ruining pipelines or roads or power grids that avoid the oceans. US power is based on control of the sea lanes.

This doesn't justify Japan's nuclear weapons program, but it does explain how many in important positions would see the need to expand their weapons capability rather than reduce it.

About Me

I am a Professor at a large public university. I study political economy and biopolitics (the politics of life). My interests are diverse but are broadly concerned with economic, social and environmental justice. I have published 5 books: Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability: The Threat of Financial and Energy Complexes in the Twenty-First Century (2016); Fukusima and the Privatization of Risk (2013); Constructing Autism (2005); Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life (2008/2011); Governing Childhood (2010).
I also participated in an edited collection on Fukushima: Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization (2014).